Being truthful to the music

CHENYIN LI, the young Chinesewinner of the 2001 ScottishInternational Piano Competition,talks to KEITH BRAMICHabout experiences, East and West

You could be forgiven for mistaking the young Chinese pianist Chenyin
Li, with her curly hair, European looks and playful and lively personality,
for an Italian or a Spaniard.

Poised at the very start of a promising professional career, Chenyin's
Performing Fellowship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (where
she has been studying with Joan Havill) follows an eventful journey from
the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing (where her teachers were Bi-Gang
Chen and Zhong Hui) via the University of Auckland (where she took a Bachelor
of Music, studying with Tamas Vesmas, and became New Zealand's 1998 Young
Musician of the Year). Her eventful life has included masterclasses with
Dimitri Bashkirov, Yvonne Loriod, Boris Berman, Fou Tsong, Murray Perahia,
Charles Rosen and Imogen Cooper, and an impressive series of prizes and
awards, including, recently, first prizes in the Dudley Millennium, Sheffield
and Scottish International Piano Competitions.